Acid attacks

WTF is up with that shit? while it's occasionally happened elsewhere, it seems like a london thing and often not even connected with a robbery or politically motivated: just a couple of guys on a scooter stopping at a red light and tossing some on a random bystander. sometimes weird random acts like this are some sort of gang initiation ritual, does that seem plausible here? have they ever caught and interrogated anyone involved?

Just acts of unmitigated, nihilistic sadism, I think. It's tempting to think of it as completely unprecedented, but to me it seems almost Dickensian - reminiscent of the razor gangs and suchlike of 100, 150 years ago.

As it happens, a friend of mine lives in the middle of one these gangs' main areas of operation, and used to watch them committing common-or-garden muggings and bag-snatchings. Then an acid attack happened pretty much right outside her window and she had to give evidence to the police - she'd actually found a backpack with a bottle of acid in it but the cops seemed weirdly uninterested in it and didn't even take it with them for evidence, if I remember rightly. She certainly didn't seem very impressed with how they were going about it.

It's hard not to get the impression that the police in the UK are being used more and more to protect corporate interests and 'maintain public security' (i.e. stopping protests before they've had a chance to start and telling people - often wrongly - that they're 'not allowed' to take photos in public spaces) than for the boring and unrewarding task of protecting the little people from crime.

Edit: I think they arrested a couple of lads - actual lads, in their mid-teens I think - but it hasn't come to trial yet.

It's hard not to get the impression that the police in the UK are being used more and more to protect corporate interests and 'maintain public security' (i.e. stopping protests before they've had a chance to start and telling people - often wrongly - that they're 'not allowed' to take photos in public spaces) than for the boring and unrewarding task of protecting the little people from crime.

not to derail my own thread, but there's a group of crusties (aka, "travelers") in the east village here who have been living beneath building scaffolding in front of a small church and bothering the church and neighbors (http://evgrieve.com/2017/08/more-abo...velers-on.html), and police have done nothing about it. as one commenter said, how long do you think they'd last if they camped out, got high and urinated in front of radio city music hall, or trump tower, or a luxury jewelry store on fifth avenue, or a niketown store, or a fancy midtown hotel? less than 24 hours for sure.

On the original question, London definitely seems to have become world capital of acid attacks, in a short amount of time (West Midlands has a lot too tho) - 450 in 2016 and no doubt that's increasing. As compared to an estimate of over 1,000 in the whole of India with a population of 1.3 billion - this seems an extraordinary stat given that, as far as I'm aware, this has been a big issue in India for a longer time than it has London. May be wrong on that tho.

The rise is apparently based on the more lenient sentencing for corrosive substances as versus knife attacks - GBH compared to murder - although afaik life sentences are now a possibility for acid attacks, in a bid to reduce any increase based on this 'loophole'. But it has to be about more than just that, increased nihilism and sadism, using a mode of attack that was previously reserved as a last resort.

Tea has a point re razor gangs - sadism and marking people is hardly new. Even so, something has clearly shifted in recent years.

It was normal for lads when I was growing up to carry ammonia say, in plastic jif lemons. When I was in my early 20s gassing was very in fashion so there are precedents but this is a new level of affectless brutality and sadism.very disturbing

I'd like to say I think there's some kinda reason or change behind it, but I just think it's "because they can". I assume it's young lads, because older guys seem to have a bit more perspective (though there have been acid attacks against women, designed to ruin their looks - though perhaps that kinda hateful misogyny isn't age dependent). I was reminded of the guy who threw the fire hydrant off of Millbank into a crowd on one of the student protests. I could imagine one of my students doing that - 17 year olds find it easy to do random, hugely stupid things quite easily sometimes. That's the only way I can connect with it at all.

It was normal for lads when I was growing up to carry ammonia say, in plastic jif lemons. When I was in my early 20s gassing was very in fashion so there are precedents but this is a new level of affectless brutality and sadism.very disturbing